CANARIAN COLEOPTERA. 201 



Although I cannot say whether it belongs to the present Section or 

 the preceding one, I nevertheles.s admit this species into the Catalogue, 

 — feeling sure (from the reasons already stated, and assuming M, 

 Brulle's description to be correct) that it cannot be referred to any 

 of the preceding members of the genus ; though in its darkened hue it 

 would appear to agree with the 0. obscurella. The enlarged spatuli- 

 form clava of its antennae, moreover, which it is stated to possess, 

 would still further tend to distinguish it. AU the other particulars 

 to which M. BruUe calls attention are merely generic ones, existing 

 equally in all the representatives of the group hitherto detected. As 

 to the island in which it was found I am, of course, unable to con- 

 jecture, — M. Brulle, as though to make his Catalogue (if possible) even 

 still more inaccurate and incomprehensible, having entirely omitted 

 all reference to " habitat " throughout the whole of it. 



Fam. 28. DYNASTIDiG. 



Genus 132. PHYLLOGNATHUS. 



Eschscholtz, Bull, de Moscoti, 65 (1830). 



318. Phyllognatlius Silenus. 



Scarabaeus Silenus, Fab., Si/st. Ent. i. 13 (1775). 



, Brulle, in Webb et Berth. {Col.) 60 (1838). 



Phyllognathus Silenus, Muls., Lamell. de France, 379 (1842). 



, Lucas, Col. de TAlyerie, 273 (1849). 



Oryctes Silenus, Hartung, Geolog. Verhdltn. Lanz. und Fuert. 141. 



Habitat Lanzarotam, Fuerteventuram et TenerifTam, prassertim sub 

 rejectamentis stabulorum neenon sub stercore bovino, equino, came- 

 liuo fodiens. 



The excessive variability of the males of this insect, both in size 

 and in the development of the frontal horn, which is often so reduced 

 in dimensions as to be almost obsolete (under which circumstances 

 the sublateral cavities of the prothorax, and the wider central one, 

 are comparatively evanescent), renders extreme specimens of that sex 

 sometimes liable to be confounded, at first sight, with the females ; 

 nevertheless the inequality of the claws of the anterior feet will serve 

 immediately, in every instance, to distinguish the males. It is emi- 

 nently a species of Mediterranean latitudes, occurring in the south 

 of Europe and the north of Africa* ; and the only differences, at all 

 constant, that I can detect in the Canarian examples are, that their 



* I have captured it at Mogadoi-e, on the opposite coast of Morocco ; and it is 

 recorded by M. Lucas in Algei'ia. 



